An interesting exhibition opened yesterday in Thessaloniki featuring works that explore the collective memory of Southeastern Europe.

Organized by the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography the exhibition Recorded Memories – Europe. Southeast will run until May 15, 2015.

The exhibition features works by twenty-two artists from eleven countries in Southeastern Europe, who address various aspects of collective memory, places of memory, different cultures of memory, as well as the role of image in these processes.

With the use of photographs and videos, the artists examine through their works the ways with which the past continues to be present in this particular region of Europe that has been marked by conflicts, hostilities and wars. The exhibition brings together artistic works that present very different historical narratives and, beyond that, different uses to which the camera can be put: as a device for producing matter-of-fact recordings or biographical accounts, for subjective documentation or historical analysis or as a means of capturing the vestigial traces of an action.

This large exhibition was curated by Constanze Wicke, who collaborated with curators and institutions (such as the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography) from the eleven participating countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldavia, Rumania, Serbia and Turkey).

The artists participating in the exhibition are: Hassan Abdelghani/Croatia, Ana Adamović/Serbia, Jelena Blagović/Croatia, Pavel Brăila/Moldavia, Michele Bressan/Rumania, Marianna Christofides/Cyprus, Iosif Királi/Rumania, Panos Kokkinias/Greece, Milomir Kovačević, Bosnia-Hersegovina, Nikola Radić Lucati/Serbia, Nicola Mihov/Bulgaria, Erhan Muratoğlu/Turkey, Ştefan Sava/Rumania, Stefana Savić/Serbia, Sašo Stanojkovik/Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Predrag Terzić/Serbia, Andreas Tsonidis/Greece, Peter Tzanev/Bulgaria, Žaneta Vangeli/ Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Sandra Vitaljić/Croatia, Vaggelis Vlahos/Greece, Fani Zguro/Albania.